Climate Change + Zoonotic Diseases May be the End of the Era of Civilisation (Nature is adapting?)

Submitted by Majrelende in anticiv (edited )

At some point, I guess it will have to be the case that 1) civilisation will cease to function because an unstable climate will make agriculture improbale; and 2) that due to our species's soaking up and spreading of infectious and zoonotic diseases, the risks of concentrated population will be too high for civilisation to form again, for a very long time.

Other, older species have many more natural predators than we do; now it seems that through civilisation and its eventual decay, maybe we are coming into our species's maturity, our adaptation into a secure place along with the rest of the species in creation.

Edit: I forgot to add this originally, but it's very interesting how we are always arrogantly trying to change things, and failing, when Nature is already working on it. I think this is why Fukuoka's ideas about farming never became widespread, because he tried to mix conventional thought (having a movement to do nothing) with Nothing (human effort and judgement being unnecessary), as the conditions for the kind of humility that natural farming requires were not their, socially speaking. So when people are talking about a revolution, or something we can do to change conditions, our minds are far too narrow, and our bodies far too small, to effect the kinds of changes that would bring us to anarchy.

edit 2: original title Civilisation is an infectious disease, global warming is the fever, and epidemics are the antibodies--and the world might have immunity soon enough

changed to be less edgy

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xox wrote

Ecofascist talking points

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Majrelende OP wrote

Did you actually read what I wrote? I'm not wishing sickness on people. There is much more nuance here than "sickness is good because it makes people sick which is bad for civilisation".

If I'm allowed to want lasting freedom, there are two general ways of attempting it: the revolutionary way, and the (literal) evolutionary way. Revolution means trying to force a set of circumstances, but it has failed every single time, because authority is simply too strong. The circumstances for the last ten thousand years have been perfect for the expansion and proliferation of authority, and so any revolution would be transitory. This is what the Leninists always wave in our faces when we talk about anarchism, and I think they have good reason. It is also what many nihilists believe, who prefer to try to live anarchy in the present as opposed to trying to work towards a revolution that will probably never happen.

Then there is the evolutionary approach, which is about gleaning hope from outside ourselves, observing trends in the world, and... the much-hated... patience. But what have we aside from patience?

This is what I see in the world. Increasingly erratic weather patterns, mass pandemics. From the start, Leviathan has been founded on at least two things: legible production, meaning grain monoculture, and concentration of populations into cities.

Monoculture is inefficient on its own, for reasons I won't give, but it can easily be appropriated (thus taxed or commodified) because of its single, large-scale harvest (these days mechanised) and predictable harvests. Wild and permacultural systems can provide food, and of better quality and reliability, but they look chaotic and wild, and harvests occur throughout the entire year. Leviathan can't appropriate that, and so it can't base cities (centers of violent or commercial power) around them.

Most importantly is the concentration of people so that the hierarchical systems of society can be used to control them violently. This is basic anticiv, though; I don't feel like explaining. Concentrations are perfect environments for the proliferation of disease: food deprived of their nutrients, plus contact with a great number of people who are also in contact with a great number of other people. If (i.e. when) the disease pressure gets too high, it will be more advantageous for people to run to the unfamiliarity hills than to stay within the populated valleys.

This danger of disease may change the world, making it unsafe to congregate into social arrangements larger than (say) a small town, which is also the biggest a place can be where there can still be a semblance of egalitarian decision-making.

Anyway, hopefully most of humanity will survive collapse. I think we can, but only if we leave civilised social structures behind for good.

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